RSSFidel +10
Looks like another marketing triumph by Adidas over Nike: The first photographs of the ailing commandante supremo aimed at showing that he’s on the mend showed that Fidel Castrol has lost none of his inimitable sense of style. That certainly ain’t no hammer and sickle perched boldly on his warmup suit as he mugs with a copy of Granma (a paper in which I was once rebuked for falling prey to imperialist schemes). And while they’re unlikely to follow in the idiom of their brilliant World Cup ads by making the Fidel +10 spot — although I’d happily write the script (young Fidel and Raul square off in a childhood garden, picking legendary fighters for their armies in an imaginary war-game… Fidel: “Jose Marti!” Raul: “Lenin!” Fidel: “Bolivar!” Raul: “Zapata!” Fidel: “Sandino!” Raul: “Trotsky!” Fidel: “Trotsky?!! [Laughs mockingly.] Mao!” etc.) — even while Adidas may not know it, the Fidel ad is a huge banding boom, blessing the street fashion marriage of the German sportswear icon with Che kitsch. And think about, which hip kids would possibly want to dress like Fidel’s enemies, the Miami Cubans and their man in the White House?
Talking of Fidel, BTW, great article in today’s Guardian by Duncan Campbell stressing why even after Fidel is out of the picture, Cubans themselves will decide their own history, and their choices are unlikely to be those demanded by Washington and the Miami crew, who are regarded with fear and suspicion by most Cubans. Campbell offers up a great opener:
“It may be as the pages of history are turned, brighter futures and better times will come to Cuba,” wrote Winston Churchill in 1895. “It may be that future years will see the island as it would be now, had England never lost it - a Cuba free and prosperous under just laws and patriotic administration, throwing open her ports to the commerce of the world, sending her ponies to Hurlingham and her cricketers to Lords.”
Not cricket: Fidel watches Che putt home in headier days
Cute conclusion, too (and I’ll have more to say on Fidel and his legacy later):
If the Bush administration is really interested in more than score-settling and vote-catching, it should lift the embargo immediately so that Cuba can, as Churchill imagined, throw open its ports to the commerce of the world and allow US citizens to visit the island and see for themselves whether it is heaven, hell or something else entirely. The “battle of ideas” that Castro has recently been urging Cubans to engage in should continue in earnest, with a place for every voice and every idea. Imperial powers past or present should keep their hands off. Pity about the cricket, though.
The Latest
Glancing Headers
World Cup 2010
For a variety of reasons, I ended up watching the World Cup Final on a TV tied to a tree at the soccer fields in the Red Hook section of BrooklynRebellion Into Money
How Slovenia Wins the World CupGuest Columns
How I Overcame My Jewish-Evangelical Upbringing and Learned to Love Christmas, Anyway
Guest Column: Gavin Evans Back in the day, when Gavin and I were young activists trying to change the world, the doorbell rang at our Observatory student house. I opened it to see a tall and handsome man in the silky purple shirt and dog collar of an Anglican Bishop. "You must be Tony," said Bis...Featured Analysis
Does Obama Have a Mideast Plan B?
It's hardly surprising that President Barack Obama chose to schedule a White House visit by Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the dead of night on Monday, because right now Obama has little to show for his 10-month effort to revive a Middle East peace process. The Israeli leader's refu...Unholy War
Who Lost Fatah?
‘Who lost China?” was the battle cry of a witch-hunt conducted in the US State Department following the 1949 victory of Mao Zedong’s communists. The department’s “China hands”, critics charged, had been woefully ignorant of the dynamics at work on the ground in China after the Second W...A Skeptical Read
More Iran Hysteria from the NY Times
The surest sign that another neocon bill of goods is being hawked in respect of the Iran "nuclear peril" is the revival of Rumsfeld-esque "unknowable unknowns", a la Iraq WMD panic circa late 2002. In the real world, of course, solid progress is being made towards a plausible diplomatic deal to ...99c Blogging
The 'Metrics' of Obama's Vietnam
Why is the Administration conducting a "test run" for its metrics of success in Afghanistan? Because the metrics used will be those that provide the desired verdictHear! Hear!
Helena Cobban Explains FatahIf I Was a Blogger...
More Dennis Ross Dissembling
Obama's Iran point man can't seem to get his head around the reasons for Israeli emigrationA Wondering Jew
Obama, Foxman and Israel's Purpose
Having spent decades drumming home the idea that Israel is rooted squarely in the Holocaust experience, and should be viewed by the world as the state of the survivors, Israelis and some of their most fervent backers in the U.S. are suddenly insisting that this is a misleading, even hostile idea.Annals of Globalization
The Shebab, the Shahids and the Champion's League Final
The Shebab gunman on the left appears to be a Gunner, i.e. an Arsenal fan... In honor of today's Champion's League final, I republish my op ed that ran in the National a year ago. What was most fascinating about the photograph of the Somali gunman who was part of the crowd dragging the body...The Whole World's Africa
Congo's Not Africa's WWI, It's Worse Than That
If there is a European analogy to be applied in the Congo, it would be the brutal Thirty Year War in Germany that ended in 1648Shameless Cronyism
Embedded with the Jihadis
My crazy friend Nir Rosen goes on embed with the Taliban, and finds out just why the U.S. can't win in AfghanistanCould Die Laughing
Whatever Became of that Nice Mr. Blair...
The problem with a global conversation between Muslims and Christians refereed by Tony Blair? Two words: Tony Blair.The 51st State
A Teachable Moment in Basra
It should come as no surprise that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's disastrous offensive against the Mahdi Army of Moqtada Sadr in Basra has had the exact opposite effect of that intended -- strengthening rather than weakening Sadr, and making clear that he, and the Iranians, have far greater in...Futures Market
Will Russia Partition Kosovo?
Why my tea-leaf reading suggests that Moscow has a nasty surprise in store for Washington in the BalkansCuisine
Yummy yummy Umami
Why a leftover lamb bone turned a bean stew into an ecstatic eventHousekeeping
'Lost' Entries on Rootless Cosmopolitan
Previous entries that now register as "not available" are ones that got left behind in a server migration. We're working on retrieving themNew York Moments
The Debka Made ‘Em Do ItFrom Tony's Archive
A Playground Lesson for Bush
How a spontaneous alliance of jocks, do-gooders and lesser bullies against the biggest bully at the school changed the balance of power at Milnerton Primary
7 Responses to “Fidel +10”
“trotsky ?”[laughs mockingly]”
very nicely done ! I wonder how long it will take before Castro’s pictures reach “Che like “chic. I doubt it will happen. But it sure feels like the world is hungry for a Che redux
Sometimes an icon is created not by his image, but by his accoutrements. I remember Salman Rushdie noticing that by the time he had visited Nicaragua, Sandino had been transformed from a photograph of a man in a wide-brimmed hat leaning on a rifle, to a silouette of a man with a hat leaning on a rifle, to simply a wide-brimmed hat, hovering Magritte-like in space. Well, if Fidel hadn’t given up smoking, he could have become simply a cigar. Speaking personally (and as a barbudo myself) I’d say we may have to settle for a disembodied bear…
Agreed. However, the beard as an “iconic symbol” (redundant ?) is already established by ZZ top. I wonder if Bachelet’s glasses have this kinf of pull.
How in the world does anyone expect Cuba to withstand U.S. pressure once Fidel’s gone?
The pressure will be so great it is a given that the Cuba of tomorrow will include strong U.S. influence.
Mexico is a prime example of what the U.S. wants, the U.S. gets.
The only reason Cuba has been able to resist U.S. influence since ‘59 is that Fidel himself would not give in. I cannot imagine another singular personality that is going to carry Cuba after the Fidel years - not even Raul.
Eventually, the desire to care for his countrymen will lead a future Cuban leader to crumble to the U.S.’s will.
Fidal was a different fellow. It was interesting watching his regiem. Raul will not be able to run things the same way- but then again Fidal will still be running things behind the curtins.
Hey there I sumbled upon this webpage by accident, I was browsing the net for New Fashion Designers when I came upon your site, I must say your webpage is really intriguing I truely think the theme, its astounding!. I’m in a bit of a rush in this instance to entirely browse your website but I have saved the location of it and also subscribed for your RSS feeds. I will be back when I have more time. Thanks for a great website.
Tolles Blog. Das Theme gefaellt mir, wo kann ich das denn finden?
Leave a Reply